Cape Wind’s monopole manufacturing job might go to an overseas contractor after all

When Cape Wind Associates signed a letter of intent to buy the foundations for its offshore turbines from a Middleboro company, it offered hope that the controversial wind farm would generate good-paying local manufacturing jobs.

But now it’s possible that those monopoles – the hollow steel foundations for the turbine towers that would be driven into the seabed – might not be made here after all.

The actual turbines are expected to be built by Siemens in Europe. But Gov. Deval Patrick hailed the agreement between Cape Wind and Mass Tank Sales Corp. in October 2010 to build the monopoles as proof that Cape Wind could generate manufacturing jobs here in Massachusetts. The Patrick administration said the deal could create anywhere from 100 to 300-plus local jobs. Patrick summed it up this way: “This is what our clean energy future is all about.”

Not so fast. Cape Wind spokesman Mark Rodgers told me last week that Boston-based Cape Wind is still in talks with potential vendors to build the monopoles and no decision has been made. Cape Wind just started studying the Nantucket Sound seabed where the project would be built to help design the giant poles that would hold the turbines.

The delayed timeline for Cape Wind’s construction – the company is now shooting for a 2013 start – has frustrated the executives at Mass Tank. Although the letter of intent they signed with Cape Wind was nonbinding, CEO Carl Horstmann and COO Randy Kupferberg tell me they remain hopeful their company will be picked for the job.

However, they realize that competitors from Europe or China may be able to offer lower-cost alternatives that are more attractive to Cape Wind chief Jim Gordon and his colleagues. They say much could be determined by the company Cape Wind picks to be what’s known as the balance-of-plant contractor, essentially the project’s general contractor.

They had been looking at a few waterfront sites in Southeastern Massachusetts to build a new wind turbine foundation plant, one that would be owned by a Mass Tank-led joint venture. (Congressman Bill Keating was pushing to get Mass Tank to build at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy.) Mass Tank obviously couldn’t commit to a lease or to major equipment purchases without a definitive timeline for Cape Wind, a project that continues to be beset with delays. Horstmann says no final decision has been made on a site yet.

“Everybody’s intention was to do this a while ago (but) there always seems to be another obstacle in Cape Wind’s path,” Horstmann says.

The Cape Wind job would have provided a huge boost to Mass Tank, which typically employs 30 to 60 people at its Middleboro plant. Horstmann says he has hoped that the new factory, if it’s built, would last long after the Cape Wind project is completed as other wind turbine developers ideally would rely on the new plant for the expertise and equipment that would be in place there.

Horstmann says he has no idea now when he’ll hear from Gordon and Cape Wind if Mass Tank will get the job. Horstmann says Gordon is still supportive of Mass Tank’s bid but also has to be conscientious about keeping costs under control.

“Two years ago, we thought we would be in production by now,” Kupferberg says. “(But) we haven’t lost sight of our original objective: to help build a supply chain to create a solid base of manufacturing jobs.”

Under the Lease Section of the Rules for Outer Continental Shelf, it states that in order to qualify for a lease, the applicant must demonstrate the technical and financial ability to construct.

Cape Wind lacks financing and an actual contract with a wind turbine manufacturer. So, they don’t qualify for a lease. Cape Wind is only alive due to political capital, not project merit. Deval Patrick ignored 147 days of Public Comment as the basis for determination that Cape Wind would require a variance as a non-water dependent use under MGL Chapter 91, Waterways and Public Protection Act. Deval gutted the oldest environmental and public protection law in the nation to help Cape Wind leap frog past this variance requirement.

There should definately be a Congressional Investigation into the politics that has driven Cape Wind as is being called for by Congressman Stearns, Senator Brown and Congressman Murphy.

Mr. Sumul Shah, Lumus CEO, said it is common for turbines to find metal shavings in the gearbox filter and for turbines to lose oil. The company did all it could, he said. The fact is things do break, Mr Shah added.

WARNING FROM WIND DEVELOPER MR SHAH:

“Turbines LOSE OIL” (call the DEP?!?!), oh wait a minute the DEP is in on the gig for political reasons…NO OIL TO SEE HERE FOLKS MOVE ALONG!!!

“Turbines DO BREAK?!?! (call the financial risk analysis folks who claim this is a good investment…have them call the residents/officials of Portsmouth and see how the broken turbine is helping their bottom line)

Conclusion: Boondoggle for one…Wind is NOT FREE…Wind power is NOT CLEAN

Industrial wind energy got its commercial start in the US when GE bought Enron Wind. I trust neither GE nor Enron in economic or environmental terms. Wind companies are also oil, gas and minerals rights companies. The Board of Managers of DeepWater Wind as example worked was a VP for British Petroleum who brought us the Atlantis–involved in the Gulf Oil spill disaster. The lead federal agency in charge of the Gulf during the spill is renamed and in charge of offshore wind development.

Wind energy is environmentally damaging and wildlife damaging. The increase in vessel trips alone required by Cape Wind involve trips from China to the US. Using Cape Wind Construction Operation Plan spec’s, Siemens 3.6 MW wind turbines; it took 30 trips from China to the UK for 70 monopiles to be delivered to the Gabbard project offshore UK). Vessels are ranked by the EPA as as one of the highest emissions offenders. Vessel strikes account for the highest mortality and risk for the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.

WSJ section A5 on 7/13/12 ‘Bill Passes to Boost Output of Rare-Earth Elements’ jettisons the degradation of our environment to serve the wind god that requires them. A House Bill has passed that avoids the rigors of enviromental reviews for rare earth mineral mining in the US.

This means pollution on a disasterous scale in the US as a byproduct of wind energy that requires rare earth minerals. China controls 98% of the worlds’ supply. Thus wind energy increases our dependency on China, unless we destroy our the US environment and mine our own rare earth minerals.

Daily Mail
In China, the true cost of Britain’s clean, green wind power experiment: Pollution on a disastrous scale
By SIMON PARRY in China and ED DOUGLAS in Scotland
Last updated at 10:01 PM on 29th January 2011

This toxic lake poisons Chinese farmers, their children and their land. It is what’s left behind after making the magnets for Britain’s latest wind turbines… and, as a special Live investigation reveals, is merely one of a multitude of environmental sins committed in the name of our new green Jerusalem.

“Jamie Choi, an expert on toxics for Greenpeace China, says villagers living near the lake face horrendous health risks from the carcinogenic and radioactive waste.”

‘There’s not one step of the rare earth mining process that is not disastrous for the environment. Ores are being extracted by pumping acid into the ground, and then they are processed using more acid and chemicals..”

Deval Patrick’s appointed green policy Advisor has a loan guarantee of $117 million for a wind project that burst into flames in Hawaii as the First Wind Kahuku wind project. Are “reactive particles” that Kahuku released radioactive?

I think its great at the end of the day that a local vendor would be the winning firm for this particualr scope and product. However, the project requires competitive bids, and we all know that the lowest bidder, who can supply products in conformance with the specifications, will be awarded the work. Politics aside, high hopes and well wishing aside. It will come down to money and schedule. The only way around that fact is if the project required a percentage of the work to be performed by local firms(provided that they are the most competitve in their bids). As for addressing the previous posts to this article, I have the following to offer – I’d rather have a leaky gearbox in the windturbine than a fluidized bed filtering failure at a coal fired plant. Get real. We need the capacity on the grid, and even though intermittent in its production, wind is bit more “Cleaner & Greener” than some of our other production alternatives.

hey there Mike…why do you resort to pointing to one supposed “wrong” (coal plant issues) to justify need for wind power given their proven “costs” either environmental, financial, health impacts, wildlife impacts etc…
This is not an EITHER (coal) OR (wind) equation…this is NOT a contest between coal fired plants and wind turbines…let’s talk natural gas, or hydro…would you settle for natural gas alternatives rather than intermittent and expensive wind?
Most importantly, when communities like Portsmouth, RI or Princeton, Ma find out how the repairs necessary (always unexpected) and break downs have put them in a financial hole…and robbed them of the financial benefits that were sold to them in agreeing to wind projects in the first place…
What we need, Mike is to put $$$ into upgrading our transmission infrastructure NOT into boondoggles…

New England ratepayers are funding a $1.4 Billion dollar transmission upgrade from ME to Tewksbury that ‘Alternative Energy Projects at Risk’ [5/13/12] states:

“…isn’t designed to handle the power that can be made available at times from new and existing alternative energy plants in northern and eastern Maine, federal utility regulators and the region’s grid operator have determined.”

But a 2008 FERC Order provides assurance that the New England ratepayer-funded $1.4 Billion dollar transmission was specifically intended to support renewable energy.

“Central Maine asserts that the Project will reduce line losses, assure a safe and secure supply of power in Maine, improve power quality and operating efficiency, increase opportunities for new renewable generation (particularly wind generation), and reduce congestion.20 Central Maine also claims that the Project will enhance reliability, decrease the risk of cascading outages, voltage collapse, and widespread blackouts, eliminate the potential for future NERC violations, and improve system performance for scheduling, outage coordination, and maintenance.21…”http://www.ferc.gov/whats-new/comm-meet/2008/101608/E-26.pdf

Wind is a redundant source of energy that requires 100% backup from conventional fuel sources. How many billions of dollars must we feed this Boondoggle before it’s recognized as one?

If it came down to selecting a generation source, I would almost always go with natural gas for it’s efficiency and performance. I would however note, that gas fired turbine maintenance is also very expensive – equal to or greater even, so I would agree with your line of questioning. I am familiar with the Princeton project, but am not informed of the maintenance issues, warrantee’s or SLA’s. Remember – there’s no substitute for robust contract management when it comes to projects such as these, inorder to mitigate potential nightmares for the taxpayers(who untimately subsidize) and the ratepayers(same group of taxpayers who then buy power from the utility).

While I do agree, our investment dollars should go into transmission, I also insist on maintaining, developing and expanding resources for local generation. That would include wind (as a small percentage) in the overall portfolio> I’m not a cheerleader for it or a detractor. I have realistic expectations for a lenghthy “”pessimistic” option ROI and not so sexy profitability until the technology advances. Recall – most first movers put up with many short comings until advanced models become commercially available. Let’s revisit the gas turbine for a moment. RW Beck designed a gas fired turbine for the MBTA quite a while ago. It was fraught with operational and maintenance costs that made operating it too costly. Braintree Power & Light – same thing – late model gas turbines installed for local generation, that is rarely if ever utilized due to high operating and maintennance costs. They wind up buying cheaper power from NSTAR. A true life cycle analysis if priceless(*if even non-existent).

I remain optimistic though, even if the grass on any other side of the wind fence isn’t any greener. Your thoughts?

For heaven’s sake, I thought this was a done deal and glad that it was settled. Jobs for people, less money put out for electricity eventually, easy on the environment, etc. All good reasons. Let us get our act together and get on with it!!!

Re your quote, “Wind is a redundant source of energy that requires 100% backup from conventional fuel sources. How many billions of dollars must we feed this Boondoggle before it’s recognized as one?’

Please note the following: ALL sources of electrical power require backup sources of power.

The real issue is cost and by cost I mean ALL costs, the cost of alternative sources AND the costs as regards when the power is developed. For example, it is only reasonable to expect that providing power during peak demand event is going to be more expensive than when demand is low.

Accordingly, provide numbers, and most especially those as regards the costs of unarguably DIRECT alternatives to providing power via wind energy.

And please, don’t harp on energy savings as the answer as there are real limits to how much more energy savings can be so derived, not to mention the willingness of the general public to go cooperate with such programs. Granted, significant energy savings have been achieved over the past 30 or so years AND there are all manner of more efficient electric distribution system innovations in the works, however, energy savings can only be part of the solution going forward.

Shirley, good lord woman are you serious with your comments or are you being facetious?
here is a statement to clear up the “jobs” issue you seem to think is a solid basis for pursuing wind development:
David Frantz, who runs the Energy Department’s loan guarantee program, contradicted President Obama today by telling Congress that the program is not designed to create jobs.
“The predominance of our portfolio — and the objective, really, of the act — is to be creating large infrastructure, utility-scale projects; and, by definition, they are not a multiplier for job creation,”
As for the cheap electricity “eventually”…same question, are you serious or are you trying to highlight how ridiculous that statement is?
Easy on the environment…says who? Where is the proof of no environmental impacts?

I think the “real” issue is that the technology that Cape Wind has proposed they will use is “discontinued”, “sinking”, “shifting” and “corroding”, and the problem is industry-wide and unresolved, and the public is unaware of this.

Accept the candor of the world’s largest Vesta’s offshore chief who compares offshore wind turbines he sells to, “old crappy cars”. Seemingly oblivious, the feds are opening up 146,000 Acres of ocean area to renewables, much under conflicting and competing use by stakeholders, instead of committing public resources and money to an an offshore test area for wind turbines. The public funding of 65% of these projects, on a scale that ignores industry identified failure and technical limitations, is a dangerous and reckless path with unacceptable risk to citizens and the environment.

AOL Energy 12/13/11

‘Vestas offshore wind president costs may kill industry’

“Offshore wind is a higher cost energy because we are where we are in the learning curve,” said Anders Søe-Jensen, president of the offshore division at Vestas. “We are at risk but we all have to commit to bringing down costs otherwise we’re going to kill our industry.”

Vestas Søe-Jensen: “It’s a bit like buying an old crappy car. It’s starts cheap, but spends most of the time in the workshop costing you a fortune, so you didn’t drive much, and your cost per driven mile is staggeringly high. It’s the same with the cost of energy when you look at capital expense and operating costs with overall production.”

Cape Wind has been a phantom project since the GE 3.6 MW was “discontinued” as the Proposed Action under consideration by 17 permit reviewing entities. The subject of Cape Wind’s 4,000 page Cape Wind draft environmental impact statement DEIS was “discontinued” by GE.

The MA DPU consideed the cost v benefits of Cape Wind energy hypothetically installed. The reliability assumption by MA DPU was based on a test pilot project that included seven GE 3.6 MW land-based wind turbines that were modified and installed offshore Arklow and “discontinued” by GE.

The GE 3.6 MW was “discontinued” by GE that is Cape Wind as 130 monopile wind turbines. During DPU contract negotiations with NGrid for a Power Purchase Agreement with Cape Wind, (DPU is responsible to ensure a “reliable” source energy,), Cape Wind was “discontinued”.

Later on during DPU contract negotions with NGrid, Cape Wind issued a press release that Siemens held a conditional agreement with them to provide Siemens 3.6 MW wind turbines. The Cape Wind Construction Operation Plan specifies Siemens 3.6 MW would be used that are “sinking”, “shifting” and “corroding” offshore UK as installed.

GE has left the risky business of offshore wind–again. But only after receiving $125 million in stimulus for development of offshore wind. (It pays to be GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, the head of Barack Obama’s Economic Advisory Panel, well.

“The foundations of some 1000 offshore wind turbines are crumbling. Danish companies face law suits over the liability and the yet unknown bills for repairs. A large brawl in the wind industry is underway. Serious design flaws in the foundations of some 1000 offshore wind turbines are now leading to lawsuits against and financial losses of several Danish companies. However, there is no overview of the problem, its economic scale and who will have to foot the bill.” –Jakob Skouboe, Boerse, 4 June 2012″

My last comment states, “During DPU contract negotiations with NGrid for a Power Purchase Agreement with Cape Wind, (DPU is responsible to ensure a “reliable” source energy,), Cape Wind was “discontinued”.

This implies GE discontinued the 3.6 while DPU negotiations with Cape Wind were ongoing. To clarify, Cape Wind was “discontinued” in 2004, 2005 as (130) GE 3.6 MW wind turbines, and entered negotiations with DPU and NGrid with “discontinued” wind turbines, (the DPU deemed reliable).

Just so you all know, you are making a very false statement if you believe Barbara Durkin has ZERO idea about what she’s talking about.
She ALWAYS provides verification links with her comments.
Where are the links to your comment?
Oh! You have none! How ’bout dat!

Senators should be getting involved in the project and choose a wind turbine manufacturer that is AMERICAN ! Domestic companies like Broadwind Energy should be considered first and foremost before taking jobs and manufacturing overseas. Steps have been in the works to prevent Chinese from stealing American jobs and business with the most recent proposed duties on winds towers. Why are we giving away jobs to Europe and China at the expense of Americans helping Americans on home soil? Whatever happened to “MADE in AMERICA by AMERICANS”?

I’m all for made in America. But, Caveat Emptor on the made in the USA wind turbines.

There is parade of shells corporations with roots in Xinjiang, China. Xinjiang Goldwind, China is liberally called “Goldwind USA”, “Broadwind USA”. First Wind execs have flocked to Goldwind of Xinjiang, China in partnership with Broadwind.

The handful of people who control the wind sector have accepted that an engineer’s wage is 500.00 per month in China that controls 98% of the world’s supply of rare earth minerals required by the wind industry. Delaware renewable LLCs established in China 2006 in a figurative bet against the US ability to compete with China, (in failing wind). They understood the markets’ US v China strengths and weakness and made a calculated decision.

Its a challenge, intended, to follow the shells, but rest assured that as certain as UPC First Wind execs have flocked to China, with an office in Chicago, that Goldwind of Xinjiang will export to the US. Stimulus continues to fund jobs in China while leaving US citizens unemployed. Wind skyrockets our energy cost to make the source less reliable, imported or exported, as it increases our reliance on China.

Is this convoluted?

Dec. 2010: China’s Goldwind has won its bid for the 106.5MW Shady Oaks wind farm in Illinois, marking a significant victory for the Chinese wind industry as it looks for a foothold in the US.

Goldwind submitted a joint bid with Dublin-based Mainstream Renewable Power (MRP), but it will immediately acquire the project outright. MRP will stay on in a “central role” until the wind farm is commissioned.

MRP bought the rights to Shady Oaks from local developer FPC Services last year for $1.7bn, as part of a 787MW pipeline of projects.

NAPERVILLE, Ill.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Chinas leading wind energy company, Goldwind, has selected Broadwind Energy (BWEN) to supply 14 wind turbine towers for its Musselshell project in Shawmut, Montana, set for installation during the second half of 2012.

We have worked with Broadwind on some of our most visible projects in the Americas including the 109.5 MW Shady Oaks wind farm, said Tim Rosenzweig, chief executive officer of Goldwind USA. Broadwind has been an integral part of our efforts to build a domestic supply chain that would ensure the delivery of high-quality projects for our customers and we are pleased to work with its team once again.